Do artists change the title of their work? Especially when the work has been exhibited and documented in various places?

I have absolutely no idea.

Originally, I titled this piece Hokusai's Yurei (Hokusai's Ghost), but a few months ago I finally realized that it makes no sense. Since then, the title has been bugging me mad.

You see, I intended to use Romanji (Romanization of Japanese characters) and English together, but the Romanji part was not exactly Japanese. It had an apostrophe! It was English. The word yurei was also incorrect: it should've be yūrei.

Today, I am changing it once and for all: 北斎の幽霊 Hokusai No Yūrei (Hokusai's Ghost). It now has Japanese, Romaji and English, which covers all the bases!

It's my work, afterall, I can call it whatever I want, isn't it? Indeed, mistakes are also part of the process.

The letterpressed thank you card from LetterMpress arrived yesterday for my Kickstarter support. I've had the app installed on my iPad for a while now, but honestly I feel that the controls are a little off and I often find myself frustrated not being able to grab or drag objects around. Looking forward to the next update.

I have been giving away these new name cards for a few months now. In fact, I have also made a second batch to give away during my solo this past summer. Apparently they were a big hit, or so I was told.

Since I have seen those mini cards from Moo that people have, I've always wanted them for myself. They might not be handmade, but they are easy to order, and each card can have different prints. It certainly is a great way to showcase my work, and the cropped photos works really well with this form factor.

They are really cute, and because they're so much smaller than a postcard and business card, maybe they would create less waste when people decide to discard them after picking them up from the gallery. Boo hoo!

Maybe someone would want to collect the whole set one day...

It certainly feels like summer just flew right by me. Despite my occasional tweets and Facebook posts, I've been really quiet.

There is always something in our lives that we said we'd want to do, but either we procrastinate or just avoid it, until it's too late. Since I had my boy cat Yogi in 2008, I've been wanting to make a book about him. Well, he passed at the end of June. He was only a little more than 4 years old and it was really devastating. This experience pretty much clouded my whole summer. Most days were gloomy since.

Then again, it might be a good idea to make a book about him to help myself grieve. Maybe. Perhaps. That's not something I could force myself too hard into doing.

That pretty much summed up my summer, which explains why it felt like it just flew right by. The equinox is only 10 more days away.

I can only hope that fall will be better. Afterall, fall is my favorite season of the year. This fall, both of my Rapunzels are away on display. One at Towson University and the other at NOPX in Turin. Things are happening again.

And I shall write again.

It's time for reminiscence!

I created this mask in my art and crafts class, probably around the age of 14. The objective was to attach objects onto a card board, and then cover the whole mask and objects with mull paper, at the end finish with paints.

For the objects, I used two folded stars on each of the top corners, buttons for the eyes, popsicle stick (of course) and medicine spoon for the nose, two ginko nuts on the left cheek, three soy beans for the mouth, stack of matches on the right cheek, an automatic pencil on the top left, and a portion of toilet paper core for the chin.

It certainly had a pharaoh motive.

I might have gotten a B+ for this work, and my art teacher hung it on the school studio's wall for a few years. That was probably the only work that I've done in school that got hung up. And I was so proud of it that I had to wrap it in plastic.

There have been a few pieces of recent work that I have completed for a while now, and I haven't written anything about them here. It's about time to give them some attention, partly because I'd like to document the process. Personally, the process of creation is as important as, if not more than, the finished piece itself.

This has to be the major reason why I haven’t been blogging much – that I have been posting links on Twitter pretty much all the time. It’s obviously quick and easy, I don’t have to write anything to elaborate, I just need to come up with a few words, and then click. Done. It’s on Facebook and everyone can see it. Time to move on to the next topic.

I certainly could’ve talked more about the things that I’ve encountered lately, such as the awesome iPad letterpress project on Kickstarter, that pair of beautiful scissors designed by Karim Rashid which I’ve bought, those audio interviews with bookbinders and book artists that Susan Mills has started conducting and posting online, or even those human skin-bound books that I saw at the Mutter Museum.

But why not? I certainly wanted to rant about why I thought the iPad letterpress project is such a great idea, and how I disagreed with printmakers who oppose it. I wanted to talk about how exciting it is to use a piece of well-designed tool in bookmaking. I also wanted to document my thoughts on seeing the human skin books.

Am I just lazy? Or do I simply have too many distractions?

At this moment, all I can think of is the sadness I have for the people in Japan. The massive earthquake and tsunami is simply indescribable. I can't even begin to fathom the emotional and physical stress people in Japan are feeling right now. All the best wishes that I can send over there.

私はとても悲しいです。今、日本に幸運とご多幸を祈る...

The final two rabbit paper cuts celebrating the Year of the Rabbit!